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Farewell, Bette

The wine list at Bette, which will be closing, was a trove of hard-to-find, unusual bottles. (Photo: Greg Scaffidi for The New York Times)

I hate losing one of my go-to wine lists, and I lost one today on word that the restaurant Bette was closing immediately, without ceremony. Drat.

Restaurants come and go all the time. Some, like Florent or Montrachet, encapsulate the social history of a particular neighborhood and era, and rightly earn fond tributes. But little will be said about other restaurants like Bette, which never really pan out as expected. So permit me to speak up.

Bette was opened by Amy Sacco, who had created celebrity hangouts like Lot 61 and Bungalow 8. Perhaps since Ms. Sacco is known as a nightlife queen and celebrity wrangler, people’s expectations were challenged by what they actually found: a solid, straightforward place with decent but unsurprising food in a warm, inviting space with, after the first couple of weeks, few celebrities.

Best of all, in my opinion, was the wine list, a trove of hard-to-find, unusual bottles made by offbeat, passionate winemakers. I still mourn the loss of 360, which closed last year, and now I shall miss Bette. At least a few places carry on in a similar spirit, like Trestle on Tenth, and Cercle Rouge.

The Bette list was put together by Byron Bates, the wine director, or, as the blogger Jeremy Parzen once called him, natural-wine aesthete and NYC wine über-hipster Byron Bates. I would call him that, too, except that it breaks so many well-ingrained New York Times style rules that I would have to punish myself mercilessly.

Just took a quick look at that list… One thing that immediately popped out was $50 for a bottle of Chateau Pourcieux rosé, an unremarkable cotes de provence. That’s scandalous. The liquor store across the street from me sells it for $12. Talk about a markup.

A friend of mine is the sommelier at Cercle Rouge and I have to say in his defense that he has done wonders with that list since he took it over last fall. You should have seen the amount of third rate stuff he inherited. He’s managed to get rid of a lot of it. Incidentally he was the maitre’d at 360 for the duration of its life and he introduced me to many of my fave wines, from the cab francs of the bretons to the syrahs of alain graillot

I agree. The cercle rouge wine list is not that great. Its all Joe Dressner stuff. Which can be good but come on…is that all it takes is buy all of the wines from one wine importer and Shazzam youre mentioned by the wine reviewer from the NY Times?? I guess Im doing it wrong….